


a vast obscurity

by annnubis



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dark Magic, F/M, Identity Issues, In this house, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Burn, To be clear no underage, Trust Issues, Wizarding Politics (Harry Potter), having an adult relationship, hermione granger ft. her deadly curiosity, just so very very slow, lurching horrifically into strange pureblood magic, sirius black ft. his feral fraying nerves, we stan an adult Hermione
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:36:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25749745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annnubis/pseuds/annnubis
Summary: Hermione Granger faces the oddities of Pureblood familial magic, the long bleak summer following the disastrous Triwizard Tournament, the pressures of being a Muggleborn woman in the Wizarding community, and her unexpected interactions with an escaped prisoner now bound to his childhood home.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Hermione Granger, eventual Sirius Black/Hermione Granger
Comments: 87
Kudos: 148





	1. hearth

**Author's Note:**

> Quarantine has me rewatching all the Harry Potter movies and having a lot of of unsurprising feelings about Hermione Granger and a lot of surprising feelings about Sirius Black.

Hermione walks briskly down the first floor hallway of Grimmauld Place, the late Mrs. Black’s hysterics a daunting echo behind her and a grimy cleaning rag stuffed in the back pocket of her jeans.

She considers that in this particular moment, she is living up to some of the adjectives that have been thrown at her today by that vile woman--she truly is dirty, filthy, and reeking in the most literal senses of the words. 

Normally she can ignore Walburga, a skeletal woman even in a painting commissioned to bring out her what little beauty there was of her to highlight in her old age, but something about days of cleaning cabinets caked in years worth of spilled potions and layers of neglect has her run down. 

Hermione has half a mind to march up to the portrait and snarl that the only reason she’s covered in dirt is because she has been tasked by Molly Weasley to help clean a Pureblood house. 

She sighs, staring at the Beetlejuice black-and-white striped carpet, reminding herself of the futility of getting into an argument with dried acrylic paint. 

No. No. She's got to be better than her weariness and temper.

Some lunch and a bit of juice will remedy her bad mood. Surliness is something she’s not quite used to. She's not known for her placid personality and she’s not incredibly well-liked in her year at school, but she is often thinking too hard or chasing some curiosity to grow toothsome and grumpy over things about other peoples’ feelings for her that she cannot change. 

She was raised by two bright, productive people and it shows most of the time. Her time has always been spent pursuing interests and researching topics that catch her eye. Dinosaurs at seven and astronomy at nine. Before Hogwarts, the essentials of her were already intact. She was not forged by Hogwarts, which seems to be the (occasionally malicious) assumption of Purebloods about Muggleborns. She was a witch, a threat of cleverness, before a wand ever dropped into her hand.

Hermione is therefore not accustomed to bored anger. Then again, visiting the Burrow is leagues away from the anxious confinement of Grimmauld Place. 

Today, her mood is a strange outlier and it doesn't fit her usual countenance, but the Black home could bleed the light out of a sun with enough exposure. 

It’s depressing and the walls perpetually have the feeling of shrinking around a person and the whole structure creaks beneath the weight of bad memories. Surely children hadn’t been raised in this bleakness, but she knows that’s not true.

As if summoned by her thoughts, a deep bark of a laugh erupts from the vicinity of the kitchen in front of her. Sirius must be in the kitchen with Harry or the twins, then. He doesn’t laugh around anyone else. 

“Hey, Hermione,” Harry greets her when she enters, with a quiet sweetness that seems to come so naturally and show itself so rarely that she occasionally forgets it’s there.

He's grown harder since Cedric's death. It's not a boy's but a man's anger she sees rove over his face on the worst days when he refuses to converse with anyone outside of his godfather and Ron.

It's good to see him enjoying a moment of peace.

Her lips quirk into a smile in response. When he returns it, she feels affection rise up in her. 

She takes stock of the morose kitchen, thankful at the very least for how much less claustrophobic it feels than the living room and parlor and the velvet, indigo drapes hung over their windows like dark, encroaching waves. 

Suffocating. That’s the word she’s looking for. That’s what Walburga feels like, a ghost battering its old residence with all the bitterness of a fallen aristocrat. She says so much of others, but very little of herself. 

_Unwashed slag_ , she calls Hermione, eyes locked on her like a hound. She doesn’t make claims to missing her home, her family, or her friends, for all the screaming she does about blood purity and her noble family name.

It’s hard to believe she’d given birth to children much less been allowed around them. She must be spitting mad about the Order’s children mulling about. She must be enraged at the newfound patriarch of the Black family.

Sirius’ strong voice sounds again, threaded with Harry’s softer tones. At the other corner of the kitchen sit Fred and George at a tiny breakfast nook. Their excited voices trill through the air. A relief loosens her tense shoulders, surrounded as she is by the Boy Who Lived and the Man Who Escaped and the Twins Who Irritate Her. 

The good natured rowdiness around her is a soothing reprieve. Sirius and Harry continue talking rather cheerfully in one corner while Fred and George dominate the other. 

“--and then, Fred, I’m going to swoop in like a galloping griffin and wrest Eithne's love from Hugo Laurent as was ordained by the gods,” George narrates to his twin excitedly. 

Hermione chuckles to herself and shakes her head. George has been going on about a pretty Ravenclaw sixth year named Eithne all summer long. It's good to see him planning with Fred to take action.

Fred grins back and encourages, “I’ll be right behind you with victory banners streaming in the wind.”

They turn and offer her warm grins, seeming satisfied when she simply returns it instead of speaking. Sometimes--only _sometimes_ \--the simplicity of being around boys can be a blessing. She’s only been here a week and already she feels the itch of confinement like long scratches down her arms. 

She begins to fill the teapot with tap water in familiar motions and worries that it doesn’t help how stilted and awkward and prim she can be with Sirius. Her default with people is already awkward and accidentally pushy and reserved and with someone as brash as Sirius, it’s like a shark scenting blood. Hermione often feels like he’s trying to bait her into arguments, picking at her wording like a carrion. 

Just then, as she's lost in thought, something that looks somewhere between a very soft face cloth and a handkerchief dangles in front of her face. Guilt suffuses her as she sees it is Sirius offering her something to help with her no-doubt dirt-covered face.

He brushes off her sincere thanks with the charm of someone who isn’t worried about manners. 

“I thought it was called elbow grease, Hermione,” he comments, wry and with a bit of quirk to his mouth, making a show of glancing from her relatively clean elbow to her soot-and-god-knows-what-else covered face. 

Bonding with Harry has put him in an extremely good mood. 

She sets the teapot on the renovated stove top and turns the dial to heat it. Hands free, she accepts the cloth without their fingers ever brushing.

It’s a testament to how hard she’s worked to be comfortable with him that she takes it as the light jest it is and shoots back, “I’m sure my elbows won’t remain exempt forever.”

Before he can respond, Harry says from behind them, “Sirius was telling me about the magic involved in creating the Marauder’s Map just before you walked in. I couldn’t understand half of it.”

She feels joy for him; how Sirius can pull him out of his shell. She worries what the school year will be like when they're separated again.

His godfather leans fully against the counter by the stove and shrugs gracefully, chiding, “Aw, Harry, it’s just a bit of magic. Everyone’s good at something. I’m something of a whiz at Charms and Transfiguration.”

Then his godfather stares at him like it's his turn to share the subjects he'd good at. 

When Harry responds with a subdued laugh and vaguely embarrassed silence at the thought of bragging about anything in return, Hermione says with no small amount of pride, “Harry’s brilliant at Defense.”

She’d add something about fighting dragons and saving witches and wizards from merpeople, but she doesn’t want to crack the fragile peace her friend has momentarily been drawn into by Sirius’ presence. She doesn’t want to bring up anything remotely connected to Cedric Diggory's murder.

Hermione can be too honest and too cutting with her opinion, but she is capable of reading a room. Being Harry’s friend has taught her a few things about tact, to boot. 

Surprisingly, instead of trying to get Harry to open up about his Defensive abilities, Sirius turns her way. She’s noticed that he never quite knows how to treat her; he either doesn’t take much notice of her or he reacts to her with a warm regard that she almost finds convincing. 

He quips, “And what about you, Hermione? Running amok of Hogwarts with your indomitable desire to learn and what have you discovered of your strengths?”

She can't help but feel that it's deliberate, the way his tone straddles genuine interest and wry sarcasm.

It’s only once the conversation takes a direct turn her way that she realizes the tea is whistling like a conductor’s signal and the twins have taken their talk of victory and crushes elsewhere. The rectangular kitchen with its array of newly installed, twinkling lights casts a merry glow over her, Harry, and his godfather. 

She thinks of answering the way she would have in fourth year before the awful headlines making rude claims about her fifteen-year-old love life to grown adults in a major newspaper and Harry’s almost dying about a dozen times and Cedric’s premature, tragic death and Voldemort’s disturbing return to a humanoid form. She thinks about how she’s grown wary-- _her,_ the swot with all the answers who can’t keep her hand down--of saying too much. 

Hermione sees both Sirius and Harry glance at each other with little smiles like they both anticipate her upcoming monologue about the pros and cons of their Charms syllabus versus their Defense practical demonstrations. 

It feels less self-conscious and more self-protective to hold back the long, real answer of her thoughts on every fantastic subject Hogwarts has to offer. 

In the end, she merely says in the dry form her humor tends to take, “I’m fairly prodigious at Muggle Studies.”

It’s unclear whether Sirius or Hermione is more surprised when the scarred ex-convict shatters the calm of the room with delighted laughter.

\--

The weeks before August pass both quicker and slower than she anticipates.

Grimmauld Place, despite its ferociously dilapidated state, remains a structure steeped in magic. It feels vaguely sentient, as if the wizards and witches who built it left layers of their magical imprints behind. As if the presence of generations of magical people and the many spells cast within its shadowed walls had nudged the house at least slightly over the line of simple brick and mortar. 

She thinks at times the house is watching its new occupants from the laconic, narrowed eyes of a lounging beast. 

At times, the doors of different rooms appear to anticipate her entrance and she swears she hears them click open and crack an inch to beckon her in. One night, she overheats in her sleep and notices upon waking that the window in her and Ginny's room has eased itself open to allow a cool night breeze in. In the morning, Ginny fusses a little about the bugs that could have gotten through the mesh outer screen. Hermione had never gone near the window the night before, but something holds her tongue from correcting her. She apologizes for the bug scare and they head down to breakfast.

Hermione takes careful note of the little incidents that pile, mulling them over quietly in spare moments like a puzzle teasing her to solve it.

Certainly, there are plenty of tasks to fill her time. Hermione goes about her days following the orders of Mrs. Weasley and joking around with Ginny. She watches anxiously as Harry’s grief snaps around him like a bear trap. She watches the twins murmur about their experiments and lighten tension wherever they go. She watches Ron eat too many grilled cheese sandwiches.

She watches her hands blister from house work. 

The sleep resulting from the regimented schedule of laborious renovation becomes positively rock-like. She sleeps like a bear in winter.

But curiously, even when rest closes around her like an oyster shell, Grimmauld Place inserts itself into her mind.

She dreams about it on the aged, plush mattress she shares with Ginny in a little guest bedroom on the second floor. 

The dream is always about her walking down the Black house’s long hallways, except in the dream the hallways are endless. There’s no rooms to enter, no chairs to sit on, and the walls are lined with ten times the portraits they are in real life. Portraits cover the walls floor to ceiling, every last one populated by regal faces with the same slanting brows and grey eyes that characterize the Black family.

In her dreams, it's as though none of the Blacks have ever completely left Grimmauld Place and those piercing grey eyes, hundreds of them, follow her unsure path. 

One socked foot is placed in front of the other as she is perpetually unsettled, trying desperately to reach a destination that never seems to present itself.

Somehow, she hears the echoes of the other occupants of the house, though she cannot understand where they'd be if there's no room, doors, or windows.

Molly’s chiding Ron in the distance and she thinks she hears the exhilarated whoop Harry gives when he’s taking off on his broom, but she never gets any closer to finding any of them. 

Her footfalls are dampened by the clean carpet that has been placed on the beaten hardwood floor. Candles mounted on the wall by burnished gold holders flicker, rustling shadows. She continues walking.

She edges into anxiety, which soon gives way to fear. 

“Excuse me, where am I?” she eventually asks one of the immortalized Blacks. 

The Black woman possesses a sharp beauty, her corset tight and tied and her thick hair is swept up in a tidy bun. She holds a scarlet poppy in one long-fingered hand and a small novel cracked open in the other. The props comfort Hermione somehow, which she supposes is what has her coming to a stop for the first time since she has found herself in this Black's labyrinth every night for the last week. 

The woman sniffs at her and turns her head away, but whispers in stuffy, disapproving tones, “Why, the unseen, of course.”

Oh, that doesn’t sound mysterious and potentially deadly _at all_.

Inside of her lies a crushing desire to know everything, a willingness to disregard danger, and a hidden flexibility to break rules in order to achieve her goals. She can recognize this about herself by now. She may scold and warn Harry and Ron about being irresponsible and launching themselves headfirst into situations, but she always ends up right beside them wading into the chaos. 

This is no different. She _feels_ herself latch onto those annoyed words-- _why, the unseen, of course_ \--with the strength of lion's claws sinking into flesh.

Hermione waits for more from the taciturn shade, but it doesn’t come. The woman does not turn her way again and does not move to speak further on the matter. 

The obvious dismissal annoys her, but it doesn’t diminish her manners. 

“Thank you,” she replies, an edge in her voice, and continues on.

She blinks awake before the hallway ever ends. It occurs to her for the first time that she would like to learn more about the old house. How lucky for her that there is a family library. 

\--

Hermione doesn’t wear nightgowns outside of school. Hogwarts makes pretty clear what they require within the bounds of the dormitories, which is rather like costuming oneself in a Bronte sisters’ idea of what women should wear to bed. It’s all long white drapery and fabric up to her throat. 

She accepts a lot of the traditional expectations of the wizarding community for the sake of prioritizing certain battles over _currently_ lesser concerns, but she had decided this summer to wear exactly what she would normally wear at home when visiting the Burrow or any other magical residence.

She’s well aware of what Ron’s mother would think of her relatively short shorts (short by the standards of a Pureblood witch raised with little to no interaction with the Muggle world) and t-shirts. But as much as she craves approval, she wants to remember what it’s like to be a part of both worlds; the one she has come from means just as much as the one she has joined. 

Hermione does not back down on the cute Yorkie-print pajama set her mother had happily purchased for her on account of it daring to expose leg above the knee.

Despite her insistence on donning regular night clothes, she cannot deny how strange it is to be skimming restless fingertips over the hard-backed, onyx-spined antique books of the Black library when Sirius enters the room on nearly silent feet to catch her in her sleep shorts and loose t-shirt.

She thinks wildly to herself, _Has a wizard ever seen my knees before?_ It is a testament to the rigid protocol of the wizarding world that she honestly cannot think of a time a magical person of the male persuasion has witnessed her knees in all their clementine-shaped glory.

She knows he wouldn't, but she worries he'll tell her to leave the library like some Byronic lord of the manor.

Kreacher had passed by ten minutes before his master, dusting a few shelves and tending to the huge mahogany fire place to stoke the fire into a toasty roaring thing, before wordlessly spitting at her feet and leaving. She'd been stunned.

She reminds herself that his actions are more a reflection of the family he is unfairly bound to than his true nature, but it leaves a hollow feeling in her stomach that is still bothering her by the time Sirius enters the room.

Before she can greet him, her eyes snag on the tapestry at the front of the room. Walburga's pale, pinched face stares back placidly.

Sirius Black was raised by that woman. It's almost inconceivable. Aware of the scorched remains of his embroidered face in her periphery, she grasps a small inkling of why his temper surges at the lightest pressure. Why his reaction to being shackled is a resigned sort of resentment. As if he’d always known how that felt.

She thinks, _That woman must have been a monster._

 _Unwashed slag_ , that’s what she’d called Hermione to her face like she was berating a dog. She can’t imagine her as a parent. 

_Ejected from your mother's foul, rotten womb_ , Walburga had hissed at her this morning.

That is the insult which had struck her like an arrow through the shoulder. It was like she'd given words to the disgusted glances some of the Slytherins give her in class when she answers a question correctly. The way Lucius Malfoy appraised her like a dead rat in the kitchen.

The boys treat Sirius’s mother’s portrait like an annoyance because they don’t understand. They don’t understand how those words hit her. She is the poster child of a Death Eater’s ideal victim. They don't know what it is to be a Muggleborn witch in their world.

She tries not to overshare on the topic.

“I didn’t realize you had such an interest in Black family history,” Sirius says after a moment of silence and gestures elegantly to the book in her hand that lists enough of his family’s genealogy to pack a couple hundred pages. 

He stands just inside doorway, looking like he’d never attempted to go to bed. He’s wearing the thick, beautifully tailored robes she’s come to expect from well-to-do wizards. Dressed in fine black fabric from head to toe, he stares at her with clear, alert grey eyes. 

She bites her bottom lip hard and decides all at once to be as straightforward as comes to her naturally, formal as she can sound with people while she does it. 

“I don’t,” she confesses, turning to him and watching as his eyes drift to take in her exposed legs from her shorts in addition to the vulnerable skin of her upper arms, “I don’t care whatever evil hole in the ground the Blacks crawled out of. But this house…”

Her eyes evaluate him in turn, as though she can read the answers on him looking for tells. He gives nothing away. Only a shift in the flames to their left casts odd shadows on Sirius Black’s cheeks and forehead and mouth. Tricks of light transform him from treacherous to open in seconds.

He’s begun to fill out and looks drastically better than he did fresh from Azkaban and on the run. Regular food and sleep without the presence of Dementors has made a huge difference. 

He clears his throat, unhesitating in his response of, “This house, Hermione? This house what?”

Hermione delicately replaces the book she’d been holding back on its spot on the shelf and has turned completely to face him. 

She’s not accustomed to conversing seriously with adult men. Pleasantries, yes. Polite, distant well-wishing, yes. Not this. Not like Harry is. Everyone, from magical creature to Malfoy Senior to barkeep to bus driver to war hero to Albus Dumbledore wants to talk to Harry Potter despite his preference for anonymity. Sirius and Remus conspire to get Harry alone and speak to him of magic they wish for him to grasp and bits of advice and stories of their youth. 

Sirius is not looking for Harry presently. Sirius is looking at her; tattoos running down his knuckles and the straightened spine of a veteran duelist and the flickering eyes of a man who escaped hell trained on _her_. 

She feels the image of the long, dream hallway press down on her again. Perhaps she can afford to share.

“This house feels practically alive,” she confides, mind whirring in too many directions to count, “It has a sense of presence beyond that of a historical residence. I’d thought it impossible at the beginning of my stay, but it seems aware of us in a way I don't understand.”

Sirius seems to be a moment away from writing off her concern and teasing her when she first starts talking, but by the end of her little speech there's an expression on his face she doesn't recognize.

The Sirius Black she's seen is quick to comfort Harry and speak sparingly but confidently to Order members. It's not a perfect cover of poise, but Harry will accept anything Sirius can give him. Familiarity cannot be manufactured, but she knows they love each other despite the short acquaintance. 

He doesn't look godfatherly now, ready to comfort. His eyes seem to get harder. Darker. His mouth softens from the line of neutrality he wears during daytime hours, less careful of what it communicates.

He tells her, “Pureblood families are _quite_ attached to their estates. This house is one of three Black properties we own. My mother favored it, despite the location. She said much the same as you have. She told me it held doorways which could not be opened by knobs. Never understood that, myself."

Unwilling to give away more, Hermione averts her gaze from his curious, probing appraisal. 

She returns, “I was hoping to find a book discussing the construction of the Black home--or any Pureblood estate, honestly. I've never considered the practice of building construction through magical means, but it feels like a promising place to start.”

“Traditional house magic is not as interesting as you think. I can tell you from experience: there are few practices of ancient families that are worth understanding. There’s a tendency towards brutality that wouldn’t appeal to you. It’s magic worth forgetting.”

And she knows that's true. Has glimpsed the Darkness that follows Harry Potter like an unshakable specter. Still, she asks him, “Is there such a thing?”

He motions for her to take a seat near the fireplace in an armchair next to the one he takes for himself. 

“Walburga Black knew plenty of spells that ought not be remembered,” he assures her, stone-faced. 

It feels different, talking to him alone, like realizing he’s put on kid gloves dealing with the guests in his house and quirks his non-threatening not-smiles and tucks his tail for the comfort of Molly Weasley and her children.

Helplessly curious, helplessly pushy, she asks, “What sorts of spells?”

He flexes his fingers in front of him and turns his hands so that his palms face him.

Staring at them, he says, “Cruel things. Spells passed down by generations meant to shape boys into perfect Pureblood heirs. Spells to break fingers and toes when Black children step out of line or buck tradition.”

He doesn’t want sympathy, would probably jump down her throat if she tried. That’s fine. She wouldn’t know how to give it to him. 

Instead, she comments softly, “I don’t know how you grew up here.”

“I didn’t, not completely,” he says as if they are more than acquaintances and she considers what a man who spent over a decade with Dementors as company must feel when trying to open up the tiniest bit, “Bella was coming around too often, dragging her repulsive fiance behind her. Walburga was fed up with my defiance. I was sixteen and hated all of them.”

Hermione keeps her silence, watching the flames in front of them curl orange and lovely. 

A pause and then, “There was an incident they never forgave me for. I didn't want them to. Nothing left for me to do but leave. And the House released its hold on me.”

Anyone else would leave it, probably. Anyone else would accept what Sirius was saying at face value. 

There’s something, though, hidden but winking in the chiaroscuro of shadows on the Black heir’s face. 

“The House?” she asks slowly.

He could very well be talking about his parents, sibling, and cousins. But Hermione and the rest of the magical world, dependent on incantations, knows when a word sounds heavy with power.

Sirius leans his head back and sighs long and low, until his lungs are emptied. Hermione is curled up, legs tucked under her and arms paler in the firelight. In contrast, he is indolent in repose, a man accustomed to taking up space. Long legs, long arms, and shoulders broad despite the skinniness malnutrition has wrought in him. 

Pureblood, but not sneering at her. Pureblood, but with jagged scars covered by thick fabric. Why does he look strangely feral? What does he know that she doesn’t, to look like that?

Always. Always the curiosity tipping her into books, rooms, friendships. Trouble. 

“Yes, Hermione,” he says, mouth flat and nothing Harry has ever witnessed, “Just so.”


	2. presence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione understands the Order a little more, her dreams a little less, and has a spat over magical creatures.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to attempt weekly updates from this point on, but I've never tried it before, so results may vary. Fingers crossed!
> 
> Also thank you for the warm reception to this fic! Everyone I've talked to has been lovely.

Sirius leaves soon after his vague answer, his long dark hair obscuring the majority of his face, politely wishing her a good night and departing into the unlit hallway. He merges with the gloom and she hears no comforting footsteps or the gentle swish of his robes against his pants. 

It's like watching a ghost leave. 

She's not unaccustomed to being alone in the house, but nighttime folds around her like a blanket. Grimmauld Place is appallingly inhospitable and difficult to relax in, but it softens a little when the sun sets. It's supposed to be a grand estate for a grand family. Instead, it feels like a ruined legacy's hideout; less ashamed to come out at night.

The fire seems to stoke itself into something even warmer for her benefit. She wonders if Sirius is aware of the house's awareness, if it caters to him as the head of the family. It probably should and, though she knows nothing about it, she's sure something is wrong if it isn't. 

She contemplates going to bed or giving into a lost night of sleep to peruse the shelves again when she hears it.

So faint it's almost inaudible, she hears the sound of several books behind her sliding from their uniform lines. _Shhhh_ , rasps the fabric covering the hardback shells of books against wooden shelves. _Shhhh_ , as if someone is selecting titles for her to take. 

Chills run up her arms and her eyes remain steady on the fire. Her body is frozen, but frozen won't make the noises go away and so she wills herself stand face them. 

Forces herself to walk up and survey the rows of books where three are poking out, almost coy, beckoning her to take them.

Hermione has never known a magic that means to truly scare her. This is far from McGonagall's borderline scientific lectures and Dumbledore's delightful whimsy. She remembers how Hogwarts had risen up as they took their first carriage ride to the castle like a detailed construct of all her hopes for what magic was; how the their first feast in the Great Hall was bathed in the light of hundreds of hovering white candles; how there was an austere loveliness to the crammed library where she'd poured hours of her free time. 

Nothing has ever made her feel like it was watching her outside of the Salazar Slytherin's Basilisk from second year. It's a little like that, except unlike the Dark creature, the house gives the impression of wanting to...reach out to her.

_But why?_

The question itself is her impetus. 

She grasps the protruding spines one by one with a shaking hand, moving around the room to find them all. Three volumes, heavy in her hands.

Once they are stacked and hugged against her chest, she cannot stop herself from nearly running out of the room. Unlike Sirius, though, she does not move on fleet, silent feet and has to stop from sprinting to the guest room lest she bring every Weasley she knows down around her ears. 

The bedroom is pure comfort. The room's air feels a lot lighter in here and the familiar sound of Ginny's soft calms her.

Strange things are happening, but they wouldn't look like much if she tried to explain them to anyone. If nothing else, Harry's difficulty in being heard by others has shown her that. She has nothing to report, really, nothing that would make someone pay attention or take her seriously.

Nothing but the books.

She walks over to the window where a crescent moon and a streetlamp cast just enough illumination to lay orange slats of light over the titles.

 _Unsullied: The Origins of Magick & Bloode_. _Constructs of Stone & Bone in the Twelfth Century_. The last is a book without a title, only dots and intersecting lines to connect them; a diary, if she is not mistaken, with a constellation engraved on the front of it.

A part of her wants to spend the next few hours burrowing her nose into them. A different part of her wonders if she should burn them. 

Reluctantly, she admits to herself that she’s quite tired. If she tries to start reading now tiredness may cause her to miss something important, which is unacceptable. 

She sets the books inside her school trunk on top of her textbooks and heads to bed where, in no time at all, the dream hallway opens up before her like it had bookmarked her spot. 

-

The next three days pass in something of a monotonous trance. With Harry's trial coming up and family dinners instituted rigidly every night leading up to it, the housework and social interactions exhaust her too much to crack open any of the intriguing titles the house has chosen to give her.

The dreams continue; no change in them. She travels down the hallways. At some point, the wallpaper begins to peel and then, strangely enough, starts flaking to reveal grey stone beneath. 

One thing does change, though.

Hermione begins keeping tabs on Sirius Black.

Before, she’d watched him the way she watches any adult close to Harry, with an eye on them to make sure nothing bad is happening. Now she’s watching him because they’ve had a proper conversation and she hates to admit it, but before this she hadn’t found him all that interesting intellectually. 

Maybe it’s that she feels she understands a small part of him. Maybe it’s because the pressure of Pureblooded ideals shouted in her face at all hours of the day is making her feel sensitive and secretly wounded and a bit more understanding. Or maybe it’s simply her bleeding heart, which knit socks for house elves and compelled her to research tirelessly for Buckbeak's case and adopted a half-kneazle the shop owner said would gleefully rip her face to shreds in her sleep. 

Whatever it is, she doesn't watch him with suspicion and she doesn't watch him for Harry (as much). 

She notices things: He does not sit with any group if he can stand in the doorway and call out to them easily. He drinks black coffee instead of tea, and a great deal of it. And, most unfortunate, the temper he’d been trying so hard to keep restrained has begun to unravel. 

In the three days she’s taken to being more aware of Sirius, he’s gotten into a spat with both Mrs. Weasley and Snape.

Everything comes to a head when, after dinner one night, Sirius tells Harry he’d expected more questions about Voldemort from him. Even Harry is taken aback--perhaps because Sirius’ disposition is much more identical to what Hermione had seen in the library than what he’s been putting forth so far. 

They then sit through the Order informing Harry of Voldemort’s advanced spying network and his underhanded practices. It's not a surprise, but it's rather sobering to hear laid out before them. She fears for everyone’s safety, but remains silent throughout the entire debriefing. It’s not her place to weigh in. It’s her place to absorb the information and think through it. 

There should be no surprise that once Molly puts them all to bed, Hermione waits the appropriate amount of time before creeping out of her room and into the ghastly gas-lit hallway to steal into the library. 

The room has become more familiar to her. It’s got marble statues of serpents poised over the fire with glinting eyes she’s pretty sure are priceless emeralds set into the sockets. Little reminders of Slytherin are everywhere, once one thinks to look for them. 

Dinner had been a mess, but she'd learned more about the Order hierarchy. How Sirius had pushed for Harry to get information and--lo and behold, despite his increasingly bitter insistence that he can do nothing, that he is powerless in the new ranks of the Order--he had gotten his way. 

He _can_ effect change despite Molly Weasley's frankly confusing displeasure. Molly is cautious by nature, protectively maternal, hoping to be on pure defense. She wants to keep information contained, unnecessary participants protected, and to continue to say little to anyone outside the inner circle of the organization.

Meanwhile, Sirius is ready to fight to extract information. He wants to move and act; he wants to blind the cyclops and slit the growling throat of a chimera. He wants not only to be a more active member, but advocates for _everyone_ becoming more active within their Order.

 _But can't there_ , Hermione thinks, _be a place for both of their strengths?_

It’s a lot of food for thought.

What strikes her most awfully is that before their chat in the library, she’d sided most heartily with Molly Weasley. She'd seen Sirius in the Shrieking Shack, half out of his mind with grief and ready to obliterate Pettigrew. 

Now she wonders if they should have let him. 

Pettigrew is who played such a large role in bringing the Dark Lord back to a stronger form using Harry's blood and Harry's ghosts and Harry's screaming. Hermione will not forget. Sirius wasn't wrong about wanting him gone. 

He’s not unintelligent. He’s not raving. The reputation the Daily Prophet purports--that of a frothing-mouthed lunatic, is simply untrue. He's angry and hurting and bitter, but he's not yelled at anyone yet and that seems a feat for someone who should for all intents and purposes be utterly insane.

Azkaban is a detention camp rife with human rights violations. Its existence makes her question many things about the ethics and morals of the Ministry. They appear to have no problem letting people rot until they kill themselves or have their souls eaten by monsters they employ (and her brain is galloping off--what are Dementors getting out of this? Are they compensated materially? Or is the exchange, as Hermione suspects, something much more precious and violating?). 

Sirius does not give into things he doesn't like easily, but when looking objectively at his actions has done nothing to earn the labels of potential flight risk or loose cannon or crazy. It looks like Ministry bias lives in them all, Hermione included.

Which horrifies her. 

He's offering his house as the Order's base, passively agreeing that Harry should not be part of the organization yet, and staying inside the premises completely. Is he not allowed to be angry about feeling like a burden? Is he not allowed to resent being free without being free? 

Tonight, the fire is already flickering merrily and a throw blanket has been tossed over the back of her favored seat in front of the fireplace, as if waiting for her entry. She accepts the possibility that the house is indulging her. She is more in favor, however, of the possibility that the house _wants_ her in the library. That it wants her to know...something. 

Well, she wants to know things, too. She can quietly listen to the Order members’ plan with the information they have procured and pieced together from spying, but she knows that secrets are often written out and shelved inconspicuously all around them. 

They are currently ensconced within the heart of a Pureblood family's most private territory and dusty books could hold untold strategies for their enemies operating with all the knowledge of ancient families. Their enemies understand the old ways lost to less lofty bloodlines, practices designed to keep them well hidden and perfectly safe from outsiders. 

This library could be a goldmine. It could a step to overcoming an ignorance enforced by Purebloods over Muggleborns and half-bloods about old and forgotten magic. If she knows what they know, it's one less way to hurt her and Harry and the Order, one less thing to lord over them with a superiority she finds revolting. 

She’s struck with a memory from their first class with Professor Snape. 

Snape had seen Harry in the class and zeroed in on him with a precision that spoke of an unsettling preconceived dislike. She’d gone to public school--of course, she’d seen Muggle teachers pick on students, but never once with the belittling condescension that characterized the Potion Master’s probing questions which had been shot at Harry for merely taking notes in class.

They’d been designed to humiliate a Muggleborn and while Harry was a half-blood, he’d been raised as Muggle as her. He hadn’t been brought up knowing the things their Pureblood counterparts had. They knew nothing of the procurement of lacewings, the ticklishness of Mandrake roots, or the stinging teeth of doxies in their own homes. They hadn't grown up with cooking charms and quidditch in the garden and a fireplace that could transport you to a pub with a little sprinkle of powder and a shout.

Harry had been unable to answer any of the questions Professor Snape had shot at him and Snape’s expression had been superior. Triumphant. That must be what all those Pureblood Death Eaters felt about the Order, clueless of their practices and too dismissive of them by half. 

She could still remember his shaky, child’s voice replying, _I don’t know, sir_ , over and over again at the bulleted questions. She could hear, _Clearly fame isn’t everything, is it, Mr. Potter_ , but the words had a taste of something else. Exclusion. Rejection. 

Maybe Snape didn’t have Muggleborn prejudices, but he’d used the essence of them to berate an eleven year-old boy. Hermione had been too busy flinging her hand in the air to understand the subtext and, as had happened so often since Diggory’s death, her cheeks flared with embarrassment. 

In her desire to be a part of the wizarding world, she’d barely noted and disregarded that first true, terrible moment of degradation. 

Never again--not when it could be used against the Death Eaters. Not when she had this whole, dusty, gorgeous library full of potential answers. Maybe it will yield nothing. But maybe it will yield _something_ , and that is a good enough reason for her. She had started this by wanting to understand the house's odd awareness of her and now her goal is shifting, widening, into wondering if there were things in the library that would help them in their fight against Voldemort. 

They essentially have centuries of magic at their fingertips. 

She feels properly motivated for the first time all summer.

The tapestry doesn’t scare her as much this time. She walks up to it, notes the lush, threaded mouth of Sirius’ father and Regulus’ pin-straight hair. She sees the uneven charring of the blasted-off family members and feels vindicated by the pieces of them which remain stubbornly visible: a proud chin from Alphard Black, what must be the pashmina scarf around Andromeda Black’s neck, and one of Sirius’ ears. 

Shifting her attention, she addresses the thankfully immobile and lifeless visage of the late Black matriarch. 

“Thank you for your assistance,” she says coldly to Walburga, “You have no idea how much your library will aid the Order.”

A musical, feminine whistle sounds from behind her and Tonks comments, “Wotcher, Hermione, you can be scary when you want to be.”

Another unexpected visitor, but none of the excitement and apprehension fills her as when Sirius entered last time. Her fingers itch to pick his brain, the things he must know and keep tucked under his tongue. 

“Turnabout is fair play,” Hermione replies, shrugging, “All her screaming can’t destroy the information archived in this room.”

Skeptical, Tonks says, “You really think there’s anything useful in these moth-eaten tomes? I’d be worried about how many look like they’d be written in Olde English.”

An unintentionally irritated sigh escapes her and when she sees Tonk’s reactionary surprised expression, she apologizes, “Sorry. It’s not you. I just--I truly believe books hide secrets more effectively than any Confundus charm or Unbreakable Vow. They’re easy to underestimate.”

“As easy to underestimate as, say, a pair of teenagers saving Sirius Black and Buckbeak in one fell swoop?”

Hermione smiles, but responds with her own question, “Tonks, did you grow up in an estate yourself? You’re Sirius’ cousin, aren’t you?”

The grin that passes over Tonk’s face is pure familial exasperation as she answers, “I am, but not a chance. Mum and Dad built a cottage in a wizarding town called Monarch Row--beautiful place to spot butterflies in the summer, you may have guessed--and raised me in the countryside with a bunch of sweet old biddies as neighbors.”

While the answer is charming and offers a spot of bright pleasantness that is sorely lacking in the gilded and decaying walls of the Black estate, it doesn’t exactly get her closer to what she’s really looking for. 

“You look disappointed by my happy childhood, Hermione,” Tonks teases. 

Hermione runs a hand down the fabric of the tapestry, jolting as a something more than static and less than electricity runs up her fingers and into her arm at the sweeping caress. That's new.

She winces, caught, and says, “No, sorry, Tonks. It’s not that. Monarch Row sounds beautiful. I just--I’ve got a specific topic to research.”

Tonks just raises a curious, nonjudgmental brow. It’s relieving, watching a woman like Tonks who made it through Hogwarts and a grueling job with her sense of humor still intact. When no one is poking fun at her, she’s hardly even clumsy. It does Hermione good, to see a young woman in the process of coming into her own and retaining her kindness. 

She worries endlessly about what the nigh inevitable war is taking away from Harry. What it will take away from her. 

Hermione admits, “There’s a lot of information Pureblood children learn from osmosis. Haven’t you noticed at Hogwarts how long it takes for Muggleborn students to acclimate to their new magical environment when they grew up not knowing there even _was_ magic?"

“Hmm,” Tonks intones, scrunching up her nose and looking skyward in thought, “I can see where you’re coming from. Tell you what--I don’t know how Pureblood children's magical upbringing might win the war, but I can set you up with my mum’s address if you’d like to ask after it. If you're really curious about it, I mean. She grew up in all that mess.”

“Oh, would you?” Hermione replies, eyes wide with wonder.

The pink-haired Auror chuckles at her excitement and nods. 

“Maybe it’ll stop her from complaining about how long I take to respond to Owls. A bit of distraction from her wayward daughter,” she says, rolling her eyes fondly. 

A faint buzzing like bees in the distance sounds before their conversation can continue. Looking down, Hermione watches as Tonk’s glittery purple fingernail polish sends little tremors up her fingers and the woman chuckles again, both from Hermione’s fascination and a fair bit of ticklishness if she had to guess.

Wiggling her fingers and mouthing some indistinct spell, the buzzing and shaking stops. 

She answers the unasked question mischievously, “Swinging between my Ministry duties and my Order duties is like working two full-time jobs, so after Shacklebolt told me he’d hex me the next time I was late to the office, I charmed my nail polish to alert me fifteen minutes before my shifts. Been working out so far.”

Before Hermione can ask what the charm is and the intonation and a demonstration for how she’d cast it, Tonks flashes her biggest smile yet and starts heading towards the door.

“I’ll show you next time, Hermione! Promise,” she vows and she’s out the door before further she can even muster up a proper goodbye.

Hermione’s fingers itch to write a long letter to Andromeda Black, but it’s not time. She’ll have to wait until she’s back at Hogwarts where owls with letters tied to their legs will not be suspicious. It’s not time to jump headfirst into anything. She needs to begin figuring out the titles of the books and figuring out if there is any rhyme or reason to them.

It’s a long night of surveying and writing down titles. She eventually dozes off on the chair and is roused by a cold nose. She wakes up just enough to realize she should head to the bedroom she shares with Ginny is she doesn’t want to be scolded by Mrs. Weasley for not respecting curfew. 

Vision bleary, she sees dark fur in front of her and intelligent eyes glinting in a lean, long-muzzled face. Padfoot is in front of her and her sleepy mind wants to reach out and feel the softness of his fur.

She doesn’t. She doesn’t know him like that. She helped smuggle him off the Hogwarts grounds and she’s a visitor in his childhood home and one of her best friends loves him, but he continues to be a distant figure to them in his private, seething way.

Standing apart, watching the proceedings like he’s not sure how he got here. 

When she drags herself out of her bleary thoughts, he’s already gone.

-

The second her head hits the pillow in her and Ginny’s room, she’s deep in one of the hallways in the dream world of Grimmauld Place. She’s been travelling long enough that the peeling wallpaper has completely given way to grand stone, as though beneath the benign pattern of violets and lilies there is a grander structure hidden by thin paper. 

Hermione does experience fear; she’s worried about the effects being hurt in this place could have on her physical body, unsure of which side of the scale this plane tips between real and unreal, wary of things she wouldn’t begin to know if they were following her, and truly, humbly afraid of the magnitude of this consuming landscape slowly revealing itself to her. 

She does not, as a rule, get drawn into danger as an individual. It’s Harry, bless him, who is perpetually being yanked from one worst case scenario to another. She follows on fleet, quick-thinking feet, but she is never the focus. Not before this summer.

The wallpaper has exhausted itself and bare stone walls seem to stretch even taller, shifting from antiquated home to intimidating castle within the length of several determined strides. She must be getting somewhere. 

Something has to give. Otherwise, why is she here?

Strangely, the one thing that does not change are the portraits, which are crammed and plenty and rising up from the floor to tower over her like still, framed birds, watching her from their nailed-in perches.

They’ve begun to look less disapproving and more intrigued by her intrusion, though none of them bother to speak with her. It’s frustrating. 

Whatever is happening, she hazards a guess she’s at least traveled beyond the outer edges of this strange place of Black ancestors she'd started at. It's like she's no longer in the Black estate while somehow still being surrounded by Black territory. 

“Were you ever planning to stop, girl?” a waspish voice drawls from a frame. 

That pulls her up short. She turns and sees the Black woman from the last dream who told her the name of this odd place--the unseen--and then refused to make any more conversation. She’s perfectly pale and lovely, the best of her family's aristocratic genes, and she’s glaring daggers into Hermione. 

Hermione grits her teeth and responds, “I rather thought the point of a hallway was to transport a person between rooms.”

The Black woman smiles as if she’s caught her in a moment of idiocy and sneers, “Please, do tell me which chamber you originated from in this place. I’d be shocked to hear it.”

Hermione’s magic is a ropy, climbing thing like vines and the derision in the woman’s voice has it climbing up her spine like it's a trellis. 

Nails bite in her palms and she digs them in a little more. She’s not angry in the traditional sense, but the conversation makes her tense. Does she want to know more of the place whose depths feel like they're pulling her fitfully forward by the ankles. 

Dry as a bone, she inquires, “Anything you’d care to suggest, since you’re so adamant?”

The Black woman looks like she swallowed an entire lemon. Hermione can’t imagine why she’s offering help if she just wants to complain to Hermione about Hermione.

“If you’re half as smart as you think you are, you’d start considering what is right in front of you,” she finally says. 

“There’s _nothing_ in front of me,” Hermione snaps, patience bludgeoned to death by the ridiculous conversation she’s been forced into and the run of hallway that never ends, “Not a room, exit, or entrance in sight.”

An infuriated flush is spreading up splotchy and red up the Black woman’s throat. However annoyed Hermione is with the portrait in whatever castle ruin the Black dream house hallway has devolved into, she’s not alone in that anger.

A satisfaction rolls through Hermione that she’s not the only mad person in this situation. 

A curl has fallen loose from the Black woman’s updo and even her elegant coil of hair seems sharply angled with annoyance.

“If you would bother to look,” she criticizes, “You’d notice there are plenty of rooms. You’ve gone too far.”

To Hermione’s utter horror, tears blur her vision as she stares at the woman. She’s had quite enough of everything--of a war that feels like it never ended but in actuality has yet to begin, of Harry’s vicious mood swings (god, the way he’d screamed at them when he’d first arrived), of Kreacher’s hatred of her and her need to forgive him, of Molly Weasley’s short fuse that was nothing at all like her mother’s preternaturally calm personality. 

Of the Order’s inability to do anything but watch Professor Snape treat them all like children and hope he was on their side. 

Of the look on Sirius Black’s face after Molly said _The thing is, it’s been rather difficult for you to look after him while you’ve been locked up in Azkaban, hasn’t it?_

“Stop,” the Black woman said, stern but softer, “Stop. You’ve a job to do here, haven’t you? I’m trying to give you advice.”

And Hermione would have tearfully spat something back, but the dream fades suddenly and her eyes fluttered and it is morning.

\--

She is preoccupied at at breakfast, staring down at the steaming oatmeal and mindlessly spooning in brown sugar and honey. She grabs a handful of blueberries for a topping and doesn't take a bite. On either side of her is Harry and Ron, both eating like they’re in a competition to see who can survive the most scarfed sausage links. 

Harry, regularly starved at the Dursleys, is understandably excited at the prospect of unlimited breakfast. Ron makes her want to gag a bit, though. When a chunk of whatever he’s chewing slips out, her stomach turns. 

She barely registers it, her eyes on fresh blueberries and her mind obsessively turning over what new if frustrating information has been yielded on her last trip to dream Grimmauld Place. Other Grimmauld Place. The Unseen of Grimmauld Place.

That fits quite well, actually. It sounds exactly right.

“Earth to Hermione,” Harry says, nudging her with his shoulder.

She lifts her head and smiles a bit sheepishly, replying, “Sorry, what were you saying?”

“We were deciding who’s gonna take the boggart in the drawing room and who’s handling the doxies in the parlor. Blimey, where’s your attention this morning?”

Ron smiles to round out his frankly offensive question and the fire it lights in her is quickly extinguished. She rolls her eyes, reminded of Tonks talking about her mother. That’s just how it is with family.

“I’m not a robot, Ronald,” she says and, at his confused glance, explains, “They’re a muggle technology that emotionlessly completes tasks.”

Sirius speaks up from across the table, having silently held her eyes with his when she had walked into the kitchen earlier. After the point of contact had been made, he’d seamlessly returned his attention to his murmured conversation with Remus over that morning’s _Daily Prophet_.

She had accepted his not-greeting for the acknowledgement was, but had not expected him to speak to her. The mysteries kept piling up.

“Could such a machine replace my vile house elf?” he jokes, callously casual in a way that never fails to surprise Harry. 

Hermione, who has been so cautious this summer not to jump down Harry’s throat and remind everyone to be kind to each other no matter how much they may not want to, crumbles completely.

It’s the Black woman at night and the Black patriarch during the day and she is _not_ strong enough to hold back.

“Maybe you wouldn’t have to if you were capable of treating him with a shred of compassion, but I suppose that’s beyond your abilities, Sirius,” she snaps at him with a vitriol that should feel strange spitting at him over freshly made waffles and orange juice, but she’s not terribly concerned with logistics when a storm cloud seems to pass over his face.

He’s simply spoiling for a fight, but refuses to match her tone. Remus, Harry, Ron, and the Weasley kids have stopped eating and watch in near awe. Thankfully, their parents are nowhere to be seen.

Sirius sets down his fork, a neatly cut square of sausage still impaled on the tongs, and rests his forearms on the edge of the table to lean forward. 

“I’m sensing you may have a problem with my treatment of Kreacher,” he says conversationally.

By now, she wants to be anywhere but having this discussion at the breakfast table with everyone around them. She hates arguments and curses her temper. How does this always happen?

In for a penny.

Working her jaw and swallowing, deciding to accept her nerves and commit, she says, “That’s not much of a secret as I’ve been asking you to treat him kindly since I got here.”

“No, I suppose it’s not not,” he smiles widely at her, a facsimile of happiness underlying a cold, measured anger that threatens to overwhelm her, “But I’ve been wondering--are you truly hearing him when he calls you that foul slur? Have you heard the way he calls Remus a savage animal or Harry a filthy half-blood? What exactly are you standing up for here?”

By the looks of the faces around the table, they’re wincing at his harshness but it’s obvious that no one save perhaps Remus disagrees with him. 

This isn’t a fight with Harry or Ron where they storm off in huffs. It’s something entirely different. The stakes seem higher.

Her voice trembles, but she refuses to back down now.

“The one thing everyone else ignores about house elves: slavery,” she strikes back. 

“Hermione,” whispers Ron, “Quit it.”

“No, Ron, I’m not quitting anything. I don’t care what any of you say, if there’s legislation that explicitly states killing your own house elf cannot be considered murder--and there absolutely is, let me know if you’d like to take a look at it--then there is no reason to back off this issue. With you, Sirius, or anyone.”

Sirius’ voice cracks like a whip and when he responds, “I’m not murdering Kreacher. I’m _notably_ not murdering Kreacher despite what a horrible, half-mad sack of garbage he is to everyone around him.”

This time it’s Remus who murmurs warningly, “Sirius…”

“Leave it, Remus,” he barks and turns his cutting eyes back to her, “I have no intention of killing, hexing, or torturing Kreacher. Despite how much he may deserve it. No, I think what bothers you, Granger, is that no matter how much you plead and insist, I refuse to agree with you.”

Calling any substantial argument completely forfeit on account of the look in his eyes, she says, “Look in a mirror, Black, and tell me that’s not your problem, too.”

They stare coolly into each other’s eyes, unwilling to break contact first until Remus sighs like a hundred year old grandmother and plucks a blueberry scone from a plate piled high with a variety of baked goods. 

“Good to know the fire hasn’t gone out of the good Gryffindor name,” he says, like he’s said it a hundred times about a hundred different arguments. Growing up with the Marauders, he must have done.

He goes back to reading his paper and, after a few tense moments in silence, the twins and Ginny announce they’ve got dibs on the boggart and hightail it out of the kitchen. 

Harry keeps glancing between them and in her periphery Hermione can tell he has several things to say. Surprisingly, he eventually decides to excuse himself and Ron who, in his typical tactless fashion, whispers loudly to Harry that once the last names came out he thought they were flat-out going to duel.

“Don’t be silly,” she calls after Ron and, finally looking from Sirius’ level stare and back to her oatmeal, takes a shaky breath.

Sirius leans back in his chair and runs a hand through his hair. It’s a bit of a nervous gesture, if Hermione’s honest, and it’s clear they’re both coming down from the adrenaline but she’s glad to know she’s not the only one affected.

His face is torn between residual anger and a strange reticent regret, but he gamely faces her. Doesn’t storm off like she’s come to expect out of arguments. It makes sense, though, he’s an adult fully capable of expressing himself and dealing with the aftermath. Has had weekly battles with Molly and continued to eat, meet, and speak with her. 

She remembers Padfoot’s nose nudging at her palm and Sirius’ gesturing her to take a seat in his family’s library and wonders if arguing means they are a little less not-strangers than before. 

“When you’re finished with breakfast,” Sirius finally says as she moves to take a hesitant bite of her oatmeal, “I’ll be in the parlor. We’ve doxies to vanquish.”

He sounds bitter about the grunt work, but at least he doesn’t sound bitter towards her and--oh, when had she begun caring?

“Alright,” she hears herself say. 

Nodding, he rises from his seat, pushes his chair in as befits someone of his station but is most likely the result of years of ingrained manners, and leaves without a backwards glance.

Remus picks up his head from the paper and, in his calm blunt manner, says, “He hasn’t fought like that with anyone but me in years.”

He takes a bite of his scone and chases it with coffee, adding, "Best get to it then, Hermione."


	3. agape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione sits in the aftermath of an argument, receives pretty decent advice from Ginny, and peers into the abyss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So turns out my outright defiance for deadlines does in fact extend to the self imposed ones. Updates will be fairly frequent but there's not going to be a weekly update promise. Thank you for allowing me the freedom to realize I haven't changed one single bit haha
> 
> Notes: Harry's trial is August 12th in canon. I'm not terribly interested in keeping with the timeline but it mostly lines up. There's also a reference to the Aeneid's Dido, a tragic figure who commits suicide after the title's hero Aeneas leaves her. The other reference is from the Emerald Tablet.

Hermine argues plenty with the boys, but she’s never been in a position that forces her to stay through the repercussions. It leaves her stomach queasy, the single bite of oatmeal she had forced down churning in her stomach like she swallowed a bullet instead. 

Her hands aren’t shaking, but she feels like they are. Her chest isn’t vibrating, but it feels like it is. The gloom of the hallway is distorted through the oily lens of her agitation and she feels worryingly like she is back in the dream in the dingy hallway that never, ever ends before she sees all the doorways that prove otherwise.

Her bristly curls brush her elbows and she is blisteringly thankful for the hood it creates, that however wan and pinched her face is she can recede without moving a single muscle. 

When she steps into the parlor, Sirius is already crouched in front of an antique armoire’s bottom drawers, head turned to face her as she realizes he’s leaning one ear against it, listening for noises her hearing has no way of picking up. 

Nervous, she begins before she has time to stop herself, “Do your senses as an Animagus extend beyond the transformation?”

At first Hermione had thought she couldn’t keep her mouth shut in front of Sirius Black in the worst way possible, but she’s re-evaluating. Perhaps she can’t keep her mouth shut from asking questions to absolutely anyone. 

She notices mostly because she finds herself trying to be more careful with him. 

He’s strangely brittle when she’s watching him and no one else is, eyes blank and delicate as chips of ice as he stands at doorways while gathered groups of the Order joke and chat with each other. 

His gaze flicks up to her and there is a change in his face, an odd self-consciousness that turns swiftly to inscrutability, and he answers easily enough, “I’d theorize it’s not a normal occurrence for most Animagi, but my circumstances are particular. During my...time away, I spent weeks at a time in my canine form, hanging onto my human consciousness by threads, until I had to give in and take a man’s body again. Dogs don’t face the same emotional perils with Dementors as people do, Granger.”

He calls her by her last name again, which sends a jolt of worry to sour in the pit of her stomach. Something has irreparably changed. She knows there is no sweeping under the rug to be done about it. 

The only thing is: it sounds far more honest than any time he’s called her Hermione. Like, before, he was pretending at something. Possibly for himself. Probably for Harry. 

But now it’s like he’s at his true starting point with her.

“That makes sense,” muses Hermione, coming to squat uncomfortably next to him, the nearness of him and their recent fight making her unaccountably nervous, like they’re talking about everything but the thick tension between them, “Dogs and humans are both affected by neurotransmitters and hormones. We both produce serotonin and dopamine, which are responsible for joy, fear, excitement and pain. I would imagine you were not completely protected from the effect of Dementors as Padfoot, but dogs do not feel--”

Hermione cuts herself off like she’s ripping a bandaid from a scab. She has no right continuing that sentence, no matter how fascinated she is by Animagi or by Sirius’ facade of extroversion laid like a tough enamel atop his genuine reserve.

His face hardens and she hates to make the comparison because he is a _person_ , but he’s like an animal catching sight of a bird through the trees at her cut-off speech.

“Say it,” he insists, expression calmer than his voice, like it always is. 

“Dogs do not feel guilt,” she finishes, and it is not what she means to say at all. There are too many accusations in a statement that intends no implications.

He smiles, just a little. It's caustic-- _first wall_ , she thinks intuitively. The first wall in him is that burning anger.

He says, “Exactly right. Canines live in the present while Dementors prey on the past. Dogs' memories are reactionary, not consumed by self-analysis. I could survive as a dog. I could not have as a man.”

It’s in that moment that Hermione remembers what she has brought with her. She takes one of the two scones she pilfered from the kitchen table and shoves one out for him to take. 

To her surprise, he does, long fingers grasping the pastry almost delicately. Their fingers don’t touch and she feels her shoulders relax. 

“Don’t you think we should attempt to contain the doxies?” Hermione asks, because the conversation is edging into deeply personal territory.

Sirius shifts gears fast, unbothered by her retreat or very good at hiding it, and he replies, “Ever taken down doxies?”

“I thought we’d use Doxycide,” she says, referencing the spray she's seen used before by the Weasley kids.

He leans back in his crouch, coming to sit properly on the old wooden floor. He takes a neat bite of his scone and considers her. She’s not used to being appraised and finds herself mirroring his position, except that she tucks her legs beneath her to sit on them as she munches on her scone. 

“We’re out at the moment,” he tells her quietly, “I was listening to gauge how many might be in there. I hear more than one, but it’s definitely not more than three. I’d guess a mated pair and their eggs.”

What follows is a rousing opening of the drawer while Sirius uses what must be a prototype of a magical bullhorn from the twins to stun the doxies, who apparently have incredibly sensitive ears. Sirius himself winces at the shrieking noise, but gamely holds the horn for at least five seconds. 

The doxies are slightly larger than wasps, but their faces are those of tiny demons. Their eyes are iris-less, inky blue as rainy skies, and they hiss like snakes. The mated pair is agitated and protective over the eggs, but Hermione uses the fly swatter (and who purchased that? it’s proper useful, if unexpected) to smack the female and the male onto the wooden floor of the parlor when they fly out and dive for her face as she is the one not holding the noise maker.

It’s a lucky swipe, but she’s not complaining.

There’s one and then two crunches as the doxies are smashed to the floor. Sirius sweeps them into a dustpan before she can get a good look at their pulverized bodies and drops them into a nearby trash bag. Nobody from the city comes to collect the bins like they’re Muggles, so she can only assume the bag is going to be zapped from existence, trash included, at the end of the day. It’s just there for convenience. 

When Sirius reaches in and shuffles the doxie eggs into a little velvet bag he procures from absolutely nowhere, she raises a brow.

He tosses her a mischievous look and says, “The twins let me borrow the horn in exchange for the eggs. They’ll be fantastic businessmen.”

Her lips lift in return, a subtle thing. She smiles enough with Harry and Ron, but it’s been a difficult summer and the muscles in her face feel a bit unused to the stretch.

Their smiles fade and the tension returns, her stomach rolling over itself fitfully. It’s hard to look at him, but it’s even harder to be seen. They had quite a disagreement.

Sirius notices her reluctance and sighs.

“I can’t believe I almost yelled at a teenaged girl,” he says softly and at her sharp, defensive glare adds, “I’m much older than you, Granger. I have no business ripping into you.”

He doesn’t look away through the whole speech. He sits a foot away from her and never averts his gaze. Despite the viciousness of their fight, it makes her feel strangely respected. 

She responds carefully, “Well, it seems like maybe you needed to yell at someone.”

He doesn’t say anything for a minute and they sit in a dark, dank room on the floor of a house he’d never intended to return to. After a third of his life was swallowed by a pitiless stone prison. She's begun to wonder how he can even _breathe_ some days.

He’s wearing jeans today and a green henley that stretches over almost invisible ribs. He’s too lean, but rapidly gaining flesh. She’s glad she brought the scone. She has no idea how to do any of this. How to be a friend because Harry and Ron had adopted _her_ after the troll and his house is trying to get in her head-- _is_ in her head instead of his like it probably should be--and there’s a war coming. 

Always, it’s the last thought, like a wind that never dies down--there’s a war coming.

Sirius stands and brushes a strand of hair behind his ear before offering his hand to her. 

She takes it.

-

She shouldn’t be surprised that Harry and Ron are waiting in her room for her. She intended to take a peek of at least one of the books, but they’re lounging on her bed and she knows it’s simply not going to happen.

The guest room is crammed because of the large mattress she and Ginny are able to share and it’s topped with an impossibly buttery soft down comforter. It lays heavy as water on her at night, like she’s sleeping at the bottom of a lake. She imagines it sometimes, schools of fish drifting over her prone body and closed eyes, the whisper of their dreamy, tissue-soft tails tickling her bare legs. Her hair, as briny as seaweed curling in the currents. Snakes rippling over her neck in search of dinner. 

It’s morbid, but it’s true. The Black house and the Unseen are a marriage of feelings within her--she alone feels as though she can sense it’s opulence and rottenness in full. 

“Alright, Hermione? Surprised Sirius didn’t finish you off along with the doxies,” jokes Ron as he turns to face her, his red hair extra orange in the warm lamplight of her room. 

Harry peers at her where he's seated next to Ron, closer to the head of the bed, from pensive, simmering green eyes.

Hermione cannot help but roll hers, sniping, “Sirius isn’t some violent maniac, Ron. I’m allowed to have disagreements with him.”

“That didn’t just seem like a simple disagreement,” Harry comments, giving nothing away. He’s much more like Sirius is now than what she’s heard about James Potter. They respond at times and give away nothing.

Hermione considers him and notices a spark of surprise in his eyes at her uninterrupted stare. She’s really thinking about what he’s saying, though. She doesn’t want to shut him out.

“I think…” she starts tentatively and growing stronger with decisiveness, “I think that your godfather has a lot going on in his head and he’s having a hard time. I think I touched on a bruise I didn’t know was there.”

At Ron’s confused look, she takes pity on her friend. He’s funny and quick and the best person to be around when he’s in a good mood, but he’s not one for noticing social nuances.

She asks him, “How would you feel if you were just graduated from Hogwarts and immediately drafted into the ranks of a war being waged by the most powerful wizard since Grindewald? You were part of the resistance, along with your best mates, and you lived by your own code and never had to return to a family that hated you ever again. But then, without warning, you're convicted of the murders of the people you’d die for and thrown into a prison so desolate the only beings able to run it are creatures who do not require food or warmth? Then you escape after twelve long years and when you come back, even though you’re innocent and even though you’re still powerful, no one trusts you or wants to depend on you. You’re trapped inside your mother’s house. You can contribute nothing, you can see no one. You’re not even allowed to leave.”

Ron looks uncomfortably thunderstruck and rubs his temples, groaning, “You were fighting about house elves. None of that has anything to do with house elves.”

Hermione’s never thought of it before and she’s never specifically had to explain it before, but it’s like suddenly she herself understands.

“Ronald, a lot of the time when people argue it’s not about what’s really bothering them,” she explains more gently than she ever has to him, “For him, I don’t think it’s necessarily about house elves. I was arguing from a point of the collective magical community’s treatment of magical creatures. But I think for him in that moment, it felt like I was personally blaming him for violence against helpless creatures.”

Harry is unrelentingly firm in his question of, “Weren’t you?”

“No,” she huffs crossly, “I wasn’t, Harry. I’m also never going to back down from my stance on the issue, so save your breath.”

Ron laughs, “Blimey, Hermione, no one’s trying to make you. But you could stand to be a bit less black or white about your opinions.”

She’s not sure what makes her do it, but she keeps her eyes on him as well. She’s so present today, so engaged with the people in front of her. Does she have Black to thank for that?

“I don't think you're right, but you're not completely wrong,” she says, like she’s imparting an embarrassing secret. She doesn’t like to be wrong. She doesn’t like to feel unsure about her thoughts. She also doesn’t like the thought of constantly offending everyone she talks to while trying to make valid points about important issues. She wants people to listen to her. 

There’s a pain in her chest that’s sweeter than honey. The next breath she pulls in feels bottomless, her lungs expanding as she realizes that she faced Black and will face him again. She can face Harry and Ron with honesty. She’s not completely lost.

Ron snorts and grins with all his teeth and she feels the swell of affection fill her up. Harry gives her a smaller but no less genuine smile.

“Way to make breakfast entertaining,” Harry says to her and just like that the worry she’d felt over losing them is gone. It comes back and it comes back and it comes back, but it is surmountable. 

She ends up dragging them outside in the sad, small courtyard in the back where they joke around and occasionally one of them brings up Harry’s upcoming trial with trepidation. He both does and does not want to discuss it; Hermione can understand that. 

Ginny and the twins, hearing laughter coming from outside, join them. The twins waggle their eyebrows at Hermione upon seeing her, but otherwise leave her argument with Black alone. They must be growing up a little after all. Or they know they’ll force details out of Ron later.

She and Ginny sit side by side on the hard stone bench near the back door as the boys toss around a quaffle and gossip about Hogwarts. 

“Worse than a bunch of old widowed witches,” Ginny says, nudging her carefully, “I keep telling Fred and George they’re the worst gossips of the family, but they insist it’s Charlie.”

Hermione laughs in disbelief, stating flatly, “Really? Your dragon-trainer brother who lives on an isolated Romanian compound?”

“Yeah, they said the Ministry asked him to leave the country on account of his insufferable nosiness.”

Hermione shakes her head at the absurdity and says, “One day those mouths are going to get them in trouble.”

Ginny points at her and them the twins in the yard, identifying her and them by drawling, “Pot, meet kettle. Ms. Granger, we were all surprised about the fury you decided to heap onto Mr. Black over your oatmeal this morning.”

Hermione groans, wailing, “How many conversations am I going to have about this?”

“It’s the way of big families,” Ginny explains, brows scrunched together in confusion until she realizes, “Ah, yes. You’re an only child. Well, here, let me offer a bit of advice: next time you decide to have an argument you don’t want to have hashed out over and over again with everyone but the person you argued with, drag them into an empty room, lock it, and cast a silencing charm. Otherwise, it’s fair game.”

They’re silent for a while as Hermione regards the red headed girl beside her. Ginny has been through an awful lot with Tom Riddle and the Chamber of Secrets. She’s had a madman in her head and yet she sits next to Hermione and watches the boys toss around a quaffle with a smile on her face. 

“How’s the summer going, Ginny?” Hermione asks, simply because she hasn’t yet.

Ginny laughs because she’s the sort of person given to laughter and as such has all different kinds. She has a loud, fearless laugh when she finds something funny and a low, crooning laugh when Hermione has seen her flirt once or twice with Dean Thomas and a soundless laugh where she looks at the ground when the twins make fun of her. 

This laugh is sharper. She wonders how much influence the House has on other people. She thinks for someone like Ginny, not much. She’s so strong.

“That’s a difficult question,” Ginny says finally. 

Hermione shrinks a little at the non-answer, thinking she’s overstepped her bounds. 

She concedes, “Yes, I realize.”

Ginny continues, “It’s not been fun, but we’re getting older and the world is getting darker. Mum wants me to pretend as though I don't understand what's happening. Everything with the diary really broke her. I haven’t been a child since then, but she’d dearly like it if I was.”

Hermione slips an arm around her without thinking and Ginny--who has peacefully slept next to her at night and eaten with her in the mornings, Ginny who wears colorful hand knit jumpers to bed and knows how to French braid hair like a professional--sinks into her.

Hermione replies as they both breathe together and watch the boys. Ginny would usually be dragging Hermione out there as she vehemently shook her head no, but perhaps the summer is weighing on all of them. Of course it is. How silly of her not to realize.

“The world was already dark before we opened our eyes to it,” Hermione whispers to her, a confession she trusts with no one else, “It makes my chest hurt, Ginny.”

They’re quiet and clinging until the call for lunch pulls them apart.

\--

Despite everyone's best efforts, dinner is a somber affair and the creamy mashed potatoes and plentiful dinner rolls that steam beautifully when torn in half are hard to swallow.

A gallow’s dinner and Remus and Sirius surprisingly take the brunt of the heaviness onto themselves, speaking easily through how quiet and white-lipped Harry is and through the fidgeting Hermione and Mrs. Weasley cannot seem to help. 

They’re allowed each a glass of red wine, which Hermione favors over white any day even with her limited experience, and she takes quick, tiny sips of hers in between tearing her bread to pieces. 

She dearly wants to pay attention to the conversation, but mostly she finds herself desperately wishing for solitude. She’s an only child to parents who enjoy hobbies of their own and out of the trio, it is she alone who heads daily to her favorite study table or to the stone alcove in the courtyard wide enough for her to spread her books over. 

Hermione enjoys the bustle of French vacations, of Hogwarts dinners made cozy the warmth of food and conversation cloaked around her shoulders like fox fur, and of the bustle of London in the summer when she is allowed day trips to wander and shop as she likes. She loves the experiences, but she is the sort of person who craves time alone to think.

Grimmauld Place is at once as isolating as it is far too much social interaction. The house is full to bursting, like an ant colony where she is stuck in a tunnel with her skin stretched too tight across her bones. 

She hears nothing Sirius or Remus say, only that Harry sometimes loses the glaze over his eyes and quirks something resembling a smile their way. 

It’s fascinating, how magic, the thing that sets them apart and defines their lives, is no contest to nerves. They could be sitting at any tense Muggle dinner in any distressed Muggle home, worried about tomorrow. Emotions are the great equalizer, enveloping all of them in the thin but clinging shift of anxiety. 

Harry will be tried as an adult tomorrow. 

“Taking a sudden interest in antiques, Hermione?” asks Tonks, a kinship and a hush to her voice that speaks of privacy. As if she knows Hermione’s staring at the Black family dinner table, dark oak that must have been chopped from the most stately tree in a cursed forest, for reasons utterly unrelated to an appreciation of fine woodworking. 

To her surprise, when Tonks dropped by for tonight’s dinner, she had not gone to flank Remus’ side as had become her habit. She’d taken a seat to Hermione’s right and offered a casual, cheery hello. 

Her hair is a shimmering violet, a movement of rippling color moving through her hair like a wave. It is lovely and as long as Hermione’s--so, to her elbows. 

Hermione does not want to reject the unspoken offer of friendship Tonks appears to be extending through her proximity and conversation. She finds herself wanting to answer affirmatively.

“I’m puzzling through a riddle,” Hermione says impulsively, “How do I find a room in a hallway without doors?"

What she really likes about the Auror beside her is that she rolls with the punches; Tonks acts first and questions later. It's refreshing to be with someone so unlike herself, who doesn't require every detail before moving forward. Before accepting what's in front of her.

Tonks is thoughtful, twisting her fingers in the sleeves of her delightfully purple, velvet robes, smile fading as she loses herself in the question. 

She then cocks her head and muses, “I suppose that depends. What kind of hallway?”

Hermione opens her mouth, then hesitates, gaze wandering over their surroundings.

The room they eat evening meals in is in better shape than any other part of the old house besides the kitchen. It has a high vaulted ceiling complete with a candelabra composed of hundreds of candles. The walls are tall and divided by panels, oval mirrors hanging on them within frames of polished silver leaves.

The mirrors are opaque and unusable with age, useless to anyone desirous of finding their reflection within the foggy depths. The only distinguishable change on their surfaces is the gleaming when candlelight from the massive candelabra hits their liquid, secretive faces. 

Sometimes the candelabra sways very, very slightly and the dapples of light ripple across the walls and mirrors in a refracting, serpentine wave.

Hermione thinks of how light tends to shudder within the Black home and how Tonks probably realizes Hermione's riddle may not be a riddle. She's rubbish at lying unless under extreme duress (and even then she's hit or miss), so she's just hoping the Auror will restrain her interest. 

“It's a hallway with no end, no exit, and no entrance. Zero rooms. There's absolutely nothing, but I'm told there would be _'plenty'_ if I paid closer attention,” she vents with real frustration that she cannot curb.

Tonks immediately shoots back, “What's right in front of you? Do we know more details? First rule is state the obvious. You’d be surprised how often that works.”

She's unbelievably grateful Tonks isn't reacting to her with suspicion. She's not getting the narrowed eyes she receives from Harry and Ron whenever she gives half-answers to questions. They benefit from her somewhat secretive nature, but they've never acted like they enjoy it. 

Tonks gives her none of that. That might be the real momentum in their discussion; the knowledge that no one is trying to pry anything out of her.

“There’s carpet,” Hermione says slowly, thinking through her relentless dreams, “But if we follow your rule, no need to start trying to pull it up yet. There’s also wallpaper--old yellowing wallpaper.”

Tonks is intrigued and intent as she leans forward, brow furrowed. She's transfigured her body as well, Hermione notices late, into something shorter and stockier than what Hermione believes is probably her usual body type. She looks terribly comfortable with her feminine hair, stubby fingers with nails so bitten down they only have enough space for blots of polish on them, and with a healthy layer of fat on top of the honed muscles of her torso and limbs.

It's amazing what Tonks can do; the gift she was born with. In this moment, though, Hermione thinks about how much more amazing it is for Tonks to interact with Hermione on _Hermione's_ terms and with _Hermione's_ withholding and matching _Hermione's_ intensity. 

She really, really does want to be friends. Tonks blinks like she's telepathically heard her, but she's only gearing up for her next round of questions.

“Is there absolutely anything else--in this _riddle_ \--that is not the walls or the floor or the ceiling? Anything at all? Something you would normally overlook as unimportant or unlikely?”

They stare at each other, brown eyes looking brightly into brown eyes. The house lays its eyes on her like a bridal veil all hours of the day and night, Harry might become a convicted criminal for no good reason, Voldemort is back, Cedric Diggory has been murdered in cold blood, and Sirius Black has begun calling her by her last name like a colleague. And yet Tonks seems like she might want to be her friend, to help. Not to tell her to step away from a problem or stop being so stern or lighten up for a minute. 

A hand reaches between them out of nowhere, causing Hermione to jump in surprise. Tonks must have been aware to some degree that Mrs. Weasley has been bussing all the plates back to the kitchen as she simply smiles at the matriarch.

“Sorry, dears,” Molly’s voice interrupts as she grasp both young women's plates.

To her credit, she makes no attempt to insert herself into their chat and leaves the room. Everyone else must have vacated at some point. All the chairs are pushed in. It’s just them and the flickering candles above and the murky mirrors across from them. 

“So,” Tonks prompts, “What else? There has to be something else.”

Thoughts light up like constellations as she visits the hallway in her mind’s eye; the surprisingly clean carpet, the peeling lily wallpaper on the walls like a loss of innocence, and the silent host of faces which look at her but do not speak. 

“Portraits,” Hermione answers after a minute, “A lot of family portraits.”

The expression of glee on Tonks’ face draws a startled chuckle from Hermione. Tonks waggles her brows as she mouths _aha_ at her. 

“Are all the of portraits of people with no real background? Just, er, headshots--is that what Muggles say?”

“Surprisingly, yes, you’re right. We do say that.”

“Then look there first--do any of the portraits include rooms as a part of the painting?”

A silence falls between them as Hermione stares at Tonks and Tonks stares at Hermione. She's fighting a losing war against revelation followed by visceral triumph. Her mouth splits into a megawatt smile that, from the muscle strain alone, must rival the one she wore the first time she saw Diagon Alley.

Tonks blinks, then laughs, then grins back. 

Hermione feels tempted to smack her palm against her forehead. Of course! Night after night after night in the Unseen and she's become too afraid and frustrated to _think_. No wonder her abrasive portrait guide had seemed so disgruntled by her lack of understanding.

“You’re brilliant, Tonks,” Hermiones says effusively.

She doesn’t have to figure out everything on her own. As she tries to tell Harry, _no one_ can go it completely alone. 

When the Auror’s nails buzz, Hermione isn’t surprised at all. It’s even a bit familiar, the way things begin to be when a bond starts to solidify. 

Tonks wiggles her fingers and nonverbally casts the counter spell to halt the alarm. 

“Duty calls, but dinner was lovely,” Tonks says, standing and brushing bread crumbs off her velvet robes, “And Hermione? I'm always happy to mull something over with you. I don't need a whole explanation. It seemed like you were worried about that. Don't be. We've all got our secrets. Hufflepuffs would say that's not a bad thing.”

“...it's appreciated, thank you,” she replies after a moment, caught between happiness and shock at Tonks' candor.

Tonks chuckles in mad delight and practically sprints from the room, patting Hermione’s shoulder on her way out. 

Exhaustion crashes into her the second she's alone. It has been a long day.

Alone now and seated at the grand table of the Noble and Ancient House of Black, she lays her forearms across each other where her plate had been and uses them as a pillow for her head. If she closes her eyes, she can pretend she’s at the Hogwarts library after finishing a six foot Potions essay. Tired but fulfilled.

Naturally, it's too good to last.

There’s a rustling on the other side of the table, as though someone in long, layered skirts is attempting to move silently through the room. It’s unmistakable movement, filigree and frightening to her ears, as a cold creeps under her long sleeves and beneath the hem of her shirt where she’s bent to rest against her arms. A tremor moves up the bumps of her spine, the chilly caress of a feather’s tip raising along with her hackles. 

Her eyes flash open, but she remains reclining against the table, face buried in the cocoon of her arms. The oak of it is sturdy enough to ground her, to keep her calm and still. No sudden movements, she decides.

She can’t escape the house; and she does not wish for it to know how much it scares her. If it knew how far it could make the terror go, would it press into her like nails?

Hermione sits up terribly slowly, her warm face plunged into the sudden low temperature of the room. Her nose feels dipped in ice. When she exhales, a silvery mist flows out. It's so cold she can see her breath.

She doesn’t want to give into that fear. The rustle sounds again, but she sees nothing. This time the noise comes from the corner of the room near a statue of a woman clutching a sword that's been driven into her stomach. If Hermione had to guess, she would say it's Dido, Queen of Carthage. She's not even a little taken aback by the statue of a tragic Greek figure in a Pureblood home. When Dido knew her lover Aeneas would leave her, she killed herself by falling on his sword. The statue's face is exquisite, with the queen's expression twisted in anguish as though she's looking for Aeneas even in death.

There are so many morbid artifacts in the house she doesn't spot until it's trying to show her itself. And what is it showing her now? A woman conflicted but resolute, dying heartbroken and in pain. 

Is it trying to horrify her--or comfort her? 

She tears her eyes aware from the sculpture and finds herself confronted with the opaque mirrors that face her like the eyes of a nocturnal animal. She feels urged somehow to move closer to the neat row of mirrors on the opposite wall from where she’s sitting.

She breathes out again in a cloud--like trying to cast a Patronus and coming up with half-hearted mist--and steels herself against a shiver. She stands and pushes in her chair politely and rounds the table corners to approach them.

When she reaches the closest mirror, there’s a millisecond where she realizes she doesn’t have to stand in front of it, which feels far too close to revealing herself to the ancient house. 

She feels it again in her hesitation, the urging to get closer. To see herself. To see what the house sees, reflected back at her.

Hermione feels the room go positively freezing cold and she’s in front of one of the mirrors, having not realized she’d taken the last step, when she sees herself: an earthy figure in the immense frigidity of a Pureblood residence. She must be so easy for Purebloods to spot, easy as finding a flower on a bed of ice. 

She sees herself: coarse unevenly curly hair, voluminous and unwieldy and brown as bark; dark brown eyes; pale skin smattered with freckles; and a couple inches of gained height over the last year. She wears her warm, shapeless clothing and her mouth is in a flat line. Her eyebrows are thick and so are her eyelashes. She wants to laugh at herself, seeing her reflection, because even without moving a muscle the easiest thing to see is how scared she is. How tense her shoulders are. The difficulty of swallowing easily traced with a mere glance at her throat. She's not fooling anyone.

This should not be possible. She had been in the perfect position to see everyone at dinner pass by the mirrors to find a seat and, true to their age and decades of neglect, the murky surfaces had shown nothing but vague and distorted and indistinct bodies drifting across them. 

Hermione shouldn’t be staring at her reflection in high definition, but she is. She looks like a crisp image at the forefront of a crystal ball.

The real problem is when her reflection begins mouthing words at her even though she's not speaking. Dinner momentarily tries to climb up her throat as she touches her closed mouth while her mirror image continues talking without a voice. She expects to find an evil glint in her image's eyes or a knife in her stomach or something worse, but there's nothing except for a few words, mouthed continuously. 

She wants to run. But there's no use in running around across the tongue of a mouth whose teeth have snapped closed around her. She's already here, already aware of her rabbit's heartbeat. She can't see any way out but forward and so she forces herself to stare into her false reflection and try to mouth the words in tandem with it until the shape of them feels translatable. 

She exhales in white winsome plumes and focuses until the words she's trying to say whisper themselves into existence. Mirror Hermione's eyes are empty and her face is clear of expression and smooth as glass. Her reflection is being used as a mode of communication by something that doesn't understand human bodies or human hearts. Her reflection is being used as a vessel.

It's talking to her. The House speaks.

 _Hermione_ , her dead-eyed image mouths like a broken record, _As above, so below. The miracles. Hermione, Hermione._


End file.
